“The project to construct Kudankulam Units 5 and 6 has been finally kicked off. We have started the project design development and procurement of core machinery for the third phase of the Indian nuclear plant project,” said Andrei Lebedev, ASE’s Vice President for South Asian Projects. The framework agreement for the construction of Kudankulam III was signed by ASE Group and NPCIL at the 18th Annual Indian–Russian Summit held in St. Petersburg. The parties also signed a credit protocol providing for a loan to be made available to India for the purpose of purchasing machinery and paying for technical documents to be developed by Russian specialists for Phase 3 of the nuclear plant project. The framework agreement provides for the construction of Russian-designed Units 5 and 6 at Kudankulam.